Product Description

Halloween 2 and 3 ( 2 Pack )

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167283 in VHS
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Format: Color
• Number of tapes: 2
• Running time: 192 minutes

Customer Reviews

You would be better off getting "Halloween 2" by itself...
You would think that they would put together "Halloween" and "Halloween II" together in a video pack since the second movie begins with the ending of the first movie, but no, that is not the case here. The original film is better than the two sequels put together and if you watch both of the films collected here you will understand why. To be clear, in terms of Orwellian mathematics "Halloween II" is twice as good as "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" and putting the later in this collection actually subtracts a star from the rating.

"Halloween II" begins with the ending of "Halloween" (just like "Rocky II"), and the first thing that strikes you when comparing the two scenes back to back is how John Carpenter's eerily effective music benefits from big production values. But then we discover that "Halloween II" joins a long list of horror sequels ("Nightmare on Elm Street 2," "Psycho 2," "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," fill in the blank 2) where the people responsible for the second movie apparently had no idea what made the original so effective (I shudder to think that we live in a world where "Friday the 13th Part 2" might be considered the best of the bunch). What troubles me is that although John Carpenter gave the directing reigns over to Rick Rosenthal, he and Debra Hall co-wrote both films: how could he let this happen?

The difference between the two films is pretty clear. In the original the worst thing you see in terms of the violence is when Annie gets her neck sliced open in car in the garage; but even then the blood and gore is obscured somewhat by the dirty windshield of the car. Most of the violence in the original is suggest and implied rather than shown. But in the first few minutes of "Halloween II" we are already pushing the envelope big time. Just seeing Nancy's corpse (at least Nancy Kyes nee Loomis got a paycheck out of it) gives us more blood and gore than the original. Then we proceed to see how far we can go in terms of what we can see (which includes nudity as well as violence).

The shock effects are multiplied by the fact that there is a much higher body count this time around. It seems Michael Myers (Dick Warlock, who also takes off the mask to play Patrolman #3) is determined to finish what he started, which means going after our plucky heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). If you do not know why Michael is after Laurie, let me take this opportunity to welcome you back to the United States after your many years away. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is running around Haydonville trying to figure out if the evil is finally over.

What made "Halloween" so great was that it showed some style and came up with a neat gimmick. You knock down Michael Myers and--he--keeps--getting--up--again--and--again. Of course, today this idea is old hat and the only surprise is when somebody is actually dead after being shot, stabbed, whatever, the first time. "Halloween II" is just a slaughter fest and with some of these characters, particularly Budd (Leo Rossi), you are rooting for the slasher big time. Curtis is semi-conscious most of the time and you cannot help but think she looks and acts a lot older than she did in the original (three years and seeing your slaughtered friends displayed in a tableau will do that I guess). Still, despite its shortcomings compared to the original, "Halloween II" (4 stars) looks pretty good compared to the dreck that was to follow in its wake, which leads us to....

"Halloween III: Season of the Witch" has nothing to do with the first two films in the series. To be fair, if the choice was between an endless series of Michael Meyers coming home to slice and dice trick-or-treaters or a different Halloween themed horror movie each year, I think I would go for the latter. Granted, I was offended by the idea that "Halloween 3" had nothing to do with the first two films in the series, but my bigger complaint is that this is just a bad film no matter what the title (and why we are on that point let me observe that the film does not fit the "Season of the Witch" part of the title either).

The idea of Halloween masks being evil is not bad (Rod Serling did something like that on "The Twilight Zone" with "The Masks"), but making the evil scientific and technological in nature rather than magical and mystical was a big mistake. Logical explanations for why things are happening might be necessary on some level, but there is no reason to shine the bright light of day on them, especially in a horror film. The evil toy maker (Dan O'Herlihy) idea is also good, except toys are associated more with Christmas, but that is not a holiday horror films should trifle with as "Silent Night, Deadly Night" more than proved. But who has ever heard of an evil costume maker? But even there, the Halloween episode on the second season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has this film beat as well. Actually, as I stop and think about it, I think "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" (2 stars) might have been the last horror/slasher film I ever saw in a theater and the more I think about it the clearer the causal connection is in my mind. Huh. So that's what happened to make me go direct to video.